The Bodybuilding Lifestyle
by Manny Starkner
http://www.femalbodybuilding.com
Does the word bodybuilding conjure an image of large,
scantily-clad men and women covered with oil and preening
for a mirror or an audience? Does it make you think,
"Strong back; weak mind?"
That image, unfortunate as it is, only represents a
fraction of bodybuilding enthusiasts. True bodybuilding
is about improving one's quality of life by managing
diet, exercise, and schedule. Aesthetic benefits from
the bodybuilding lifestyle are like the icing on a cake;
in and of themselves, they're not satisfying as a stand-
alone feature.
Bodybuilding's chief purpose is to make as comfortable
as possible living inside of your own skin. Since our
bodies were made for movement, exercise is the foundation
of bodybuilding. Bodybuilders focus on two objectives
through exercise. First, they want to build big, strong,
functional muscles. This is accomplished through some
kind of resistance-training and some kind of flexibility
training. Second, they want to minimize the amount of
non-functional tissue that they carry around (i.e. fat).
This is accomplished through resistance-training and
aerobic activity. All of this sounds like it takes a lot
of time, but you don't have to live at the gym to build
the body you want. Most of us can achieve those goals with
about three hours per week of strength training and three
hours a week of aerobic activity with stretching included
as part of warm-ups and cool-downs. More exercise than
that doesn't offer that much more benefit unless one is
training for competition.
If you own a high-quality automobile, you fuel it with
premium gasoline to get the best performance from its
engine. Your body, like a fine car, requires high-quality
fuel to do its best both in the gym and in the rest of
your life. While a bodybuilding lifestyle doesn't mean you
have to give up all of the foods you love, it does require
that you eat those foods sparingly. Instead, fill up on
high-quality food sources that are as close to their
natural states as possible. We're all different, but we
each have an optimal balance of the macronutrients
carbohydrate, fat, and protein that we should consume
daily, and we need to seek quality sources for them.
Additionally, it's important that we get adequate vitamin
and mineral intake either through our foods or by
supplementing. Remember, this lifestyle is as much about
health as it is about fitness, so keep both in mind when
you make a trip to the grocery store.
Our bodies don't grow when we're working out or chowing
down, they develop while we're resting. Do you get
sufficient sleep at night? If not, why not? What needs
to change in your life so that you can do what you
need to do in your daily life, and exercise, and prepare
good foods, and get adequate rest? Before you can manage
your health and fitness, you have to learn how to manage
your time.
Can you live the bodybuilding lifestyle? I suspect that
you can with sufficient forethought, desire, and
perseverance. Are you ready to take the bodybuilding
lifestyle on?
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